Tuesday 15 September 2009

JOHNNY SUPREMO'S MASTERCLASS............................................................. Declarers, who can steer home almost impossible contracts, tend to have that ability to envisage and engineer the play of those crucial last few tricks.....and how that all important and elusive trick may yet be won. Apart from myself only two other declarers steered home 3NT in a field of over one hundred pairs, many of whom also ended up in this rather pushy game. Eight tricks seemed the maximum, and with 3 tricks to play for, seven were in the bag with the opponents taking the other three. In dummy, I had the spade queen (opposite my 96), the heart 10 and the diamond 10. My other card was a losing 6 of clubs. West held 3 jacks in spades, hearts and diamonds, while East held the boss club and two spades to the 85. Things so far had all gone according to plan. All I had to do was engineer two tricks from the remaining three. The solution I had envisaged was an attempted squeeze on West, followed by an unblocking by me in dummy, and end playing East in the process. So I played my losing club for East to take. West was theroretically squeezed having to keep both red jacks, and so he naturally parted with his jack of spades. Now came the winning play when I unblocked the queen of spades from dummy. East was fixed having to play from the 85 of spades right underneath my 96. Game over.

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